A Virgin in the Philippines by W.H. Johnson

A travelogue extraordinaire! What a wonderful way to learn about the Philippines. Johnnie Johnson takes us on his first eye-opening six week trip in 2011 and we share his learning experiences right along with him.

Johnnie married a Filipina, Fay, late in life. This relationship is where Johnnie opens up his heart as well as his life to a new way of living and learning.

Being an educated man, Johnnie is able to articulate to his readers all the wonders of the Philippines with ease. We get to walk the colorful countryside and visit the rice fields. We ride on Lorries and Jeepneys on our way to family get-togethers. His wife has a large extended family and Johnnie learns to fit right in.

We share Filipino culture in the preparation of delicious meals shared and the honest conversation spoken freely representing the culture. We go to church with Johnnie and Fay where his inner most thoughts are expressed to the reader.

Johnnie enjoys his visit as any reader can tell. However, he doesn’t sugar coat the problems in the Philippines. The government is in need of major improvement. We see this as Johnnie describes the ordeal Fay goes through trying to renew her driving license.

The people are optimistic, but Johnnie can’t help wondering why at times. For such hard working people, he thinks they should be better off than they are. He finds it mind-boggling that services offered are so inexpensive. He knows this first hand because he had to visit the dentist.

My daughter-in-law is Filipino and I feel I understand her better from reading A Virgin in the Philippines. Her extended family resembles Fay’s family in many ways.

Thank you to Johnnie Johnson for such a beautiful insight to daily life in the Philippines! I wish you and Fay much happiness and many more visits back to enjoy the Philippines.

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

This entry was posted on June 30, 2012 at 4:58 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.